Opening VISTA

The Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), is being opened before sunset, in preparation for night observations. As for the VLT 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes (UTs), the opening is controlled by an engineer from inside the telescope but observations are performed remotely from a separate control building. VISTA, which started operations at the end of 2009, was the latest telescope to be added to ESO´s Paranal Observatory, located some 120 km south from Antofagasta, in the north of Chile. With a main mirror 4.1 metres across, VISTA is the largest telescope in the world dedicated to surveying the sky at near-infrared wavelengths. VISTA´s extremely compact structure and highly-curved primary mirror give this telescope a large field of view, 1.65 degrees in diameter (the apparent size of the Moon is 0.5 degrees).